♥ snow-skin mooncake at emperor garden bakery, chinatown
the not-so-traditional: snow-skin mooncakes or bing pi in mandarin and ping pei in cantonese are unbaked mooncakes. dont you think the name is kinda cute? reminds me of winter! wonder why it's not called "xue bing" (snow cake). It probably came about in the early 90s from Hong Kong. unlike its traditional peer, the snow-skin mooncakes are best eaten the day it is made. they dont keep long so it is usually kept refrigerated.
it seems like there are 2 types of view towards the snow-skin mooncakes. there is this side who claims that snow-skin mooncakes are more oilier and more fattening and then there is this other side claiming snow-skin mooncakes as the healthy low-fat alternative.
i am on neither side. oh! who cares, really? sometimes you just want to be able to enjoy something once in a while without worrying too much about what other people think. beside, we only have mooncakes once a year.
♥ snow-skin mooncakes
personally i find myself enjoying snow-skin mooncakes more than the traditional one. probably because they are not as heavy. i bought these two snow-skin mooncakes from emperor garden bakery in chinatown. i couldnt resist getting them when i happened to walk past the bakery.
hm. ok. i didnt "happened to walk past". i actually went to chinatown just to get them.
i have to say i dont really like snow-skin mooncakes from malaysia and singapore. somehow, the malaysian and singaporean snow-skins taste very much like sugar paste. you get this sandy-sugary feeling in your mouth. the combination of a super sugary crust with super sweet fillings isnt that much of an excitement to your appetence.
the emperor bakery's snow-skins are a little better. it is more chewy and not as sweet. i always have the feeling that the snow-skin idea actually brunches out from asian glutinous rice-cakes. it reminded me of japanese rice-cake like daifuku except that japanese one is so much softer. it also reminds me of hong kong snack: lo mai chee (glutinous rice-cake usually with peanut or red bean filling and coated with desicicated coconut); and taiwanese "mua-chee" (very similar to japanese mochi. probably like a mix of japanese and hong kong).
♥ custard and red bean snow-skin
these snow-skins look a little dry in the pic. in fact, the skins have actually dried up quite a bit. i bought them in the afternoon and carried them around in my bag the whole day. it was a little too late by the time i managed to get them into a fridge. so now you can see snow-skins really dont keep well.
the snow-skin is made of cooked glutinous rice flour (gao fen)* mixed with sugar, shortening and cold water. it involves no cooking and no baking. it's just a matter of measuring and mixing it to the right consistency.add colouring if you want coloured snow-skins.
*gao fen: no, you can get cooked glutinous rice flour by cooking or frying glutinous rice flour!
♥ big snow-skin on the left and mini on the right
the emperor bakery sells snow-skin in 2 sizes: the usual mooncake size ($7 ea) and a cute mini one ($3 ea or $5.50 for 2). ha! the mini one is just perfect for me. a big-mouth person could probably swallow the mini one in one go: "yi kou chi" (one mouth eat).
there are five different flavours:
- lotus seed paste (lian yong)
- red bean paste (tau sah)
- taro paste (wu yong)
- green-tea flavoured lotus paste (luk cha)
- custard (nai wong)
♥ custard snow-skin mooncake
i always have a thing for nai wong. without thinking, i know i definitely have to get the nai wong snow-skin. my other favourite: wu yong, appears to be very very popular. the two times i was there, the taro one was all sold out! *sigh*
the nai wong is not bad but i am a bit disappointed that it has a very intense coconut taste. i could also taste shreds of coconut. maybe it's made with coconut milk. now this would be a very good example of fattening snow-skin.
the snow-skin mooncakes also come filled with yolk. even with this mini one. notice the slightly orangy chunk inside the mooncake. the bigger snow-skin mooncakes comes with one whole yolk.
♥ red bean paste snow-skin
no taro snow-skin, so i opted for red bean instead. the red bean paste is very smooth and isnt as sweet. i wonder if it's because the mooncake has been chilled so the sweetness has been numbed. sorry yolk-lover, i picked out the yolk again.
sometimes i wonder what's the craze about mooncakes. although sad to say, i also tend to fall into a mooncake-craze when mid-autumn is near. eating mooncake is like eating one large spoonful of the filling together with tid bits of crust probably size of only one-tenth of the filling you are eating.
okie. no complains here. i enjoy my mooncakes once a year. (=^_^=)
Emperor Garden Bakery
(next to Emperor Garden Restaurant)
96-100 hay street
haymarket nsw 2000
ph: (02) 9211 2135
fyi:
how to make a snow-skin mooncake
Hi Pinkcocoa,
ReplyDeleteI like the new blog. I've never seen this type of mooncake here in Hawaii. We only have the traditional baked ones with lotus and egg yolk. Looks quite interesting. How do they taste? Sweet?
wei Pinkcocoa... ai yar~~ hven't had Bing Pi for a long long time. I miss it, though there was once I ate them too much and get scared away whenever I see Bing Pi. :P
ReplyDeleteHey, u know wat, I love custard too. Yap, I tried Daifuku and Mua chee before... now u remind me they actually relative to Bing Pi. Totally agree.
Have u ever tried a modified version of Daifuku? It is called Ichigo Musume... it's just so oishiii... with very soft white skin outside, wrapping the white cream n custard cream, and in the middle, with one big big ichigo (strawberry)... Just so irresistible.
hi Reid
ReplyDeletethanks for dropping by and thanksss for the compliment! ^-^ *silly grin*
snow-skin mooncakes are absolutely yummy when chilled but it can be a little too sweet if the snow-skin is made with a large amount of sugar. if you eat the snow-skin alone, it is sweet, soft and a little chewy. but it dries out really fast so it's best to eat it when it's just made! the snow-skin mooncakes are good to enjoy in a hot day :-)
wow. you are in hawaii, the holiday heaven! i am so envious. >.< what's a typical hawaiian meal like?
hi fish fish
hehe. i am absolutely in love with anything to do with glutinous flour! oh yeah, the custard. i havent seen people (girls at least) who dont like custard. *slurp*
oh yesss! i had Ichigo Musume before. actually i wanted to include Ichigo Musume in my post but i dont know its correct name in japanese so i left it out. it's sooooooooo nice! i tried it in taiwan though. they called it "xue mei liang" there. the skin's very soft and i got addicted to it once i had a try. is this expensive in japan? can you get it everywhere? wahhh i want to be in japan right now!
today i saw a pack of japanese ichigo musume flour at the asian supermarket here. but aiks. too expensive. one small pack costs about AUD$7 (probably about RM$15?). >.<~
Morning pinkcocoa... the Ichigo Musume usually sell in winter time. The one I owez had is the more expensive type. Cost around 210 yen (~RM7). But tried one in konbini (convenient store), not bad too, around 180yen. Hey, next time u come to Japan, I'll bring u to try all these yummmy yummy stuff in Japan.
ReplyDeletebtw, my Chinese fren in my lab, she hates custard. heee...
fish fish
ReplyDeleteoh yesssss please! bring me to eat all the nice nice food in japan, please!!! there are so many japanese food i want to try. :p you are in kyoto right? what's the dishes kyoto is famous for?
the Ichigo Musume i tried in taiwan costs about NT$100 for 2 or 3. but then again i am not sure about the price. it's too long ago. >.<
Hi Pink Cocoa,
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to some Hawaiian food that's posted on my blog.
Helena's Hawaiian FoodYou should come and visit Hawaii sometime. =) By the way, I really enjoy your new site.
I'm impressed, I have to admit. Rarely do I come across a blog that's both educative and engaging, and let me tell
ReplyDeleteyou, you've hit the nail on the head. The issue is something that too few men and women are speaking intelligently about. I'm very
happy I found this during my search for something relating to this.
Also visit my homepage; pureberrymaxreview.net